


Keeping the Promise

by fannishliss



Series: The Promise Verse post 5.22 AU [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Promise Verse, post 5.22 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:52:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was morning,  time for Dean to not screw up.</p><p> </p><p>disclaimer:  Thanks be to Kripke!  Thanks to Billy Joel's 1980 album, Glass Houses, which is singing the many despairs of Dean to me this week.</p><p>Follows directly on my other Dean/Lisa 5.22 codas so far:  "not the burnt and broken" (Dean pov) and  "Ground Rules" (Lisa pov); the Sam codas are happening simultaneously "blind, without a blow" (Lucifer pov) and "two-edged, golden, sanguine" (Sam in Hell).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping the Promise

 

Dean opened his eyes, grabbed for nothing under his pillow, and got his bearings.

 

He was lying on deliciously smooth sheets that smelled like lavender, but down in the pillow and in the air all around him, were the smells of a woman. Lisa.

 

It was still dark out, but a few birds had begun to stake out their territory with loud, melodic battle cries. Sam was still in Hell.  It was morning, the morning of his first day keeping the promise.  It was time for him to not screw up.

 

He sat up, and shuffled across the hardwood floor to the bathroom Lisa had showed him.

 

He splashed his face with water and checked the mirror.  Bleary green eyes stared back at him.  Two years’ nightmares to the contrary, he didn’t blink demon, the blackness still in remission since Castiel’s rebuild.

 

He slipped into his running clothes and headed out. He and Sam had been training pretty hard, near the end. Morning light was just brightening the sky when he returned, not a long run, but enough to clear his head.  He showered and went down to poke around in the kitchen.

 

Lisa didn’t have Hungry Jack, but there was a tin of some fancy buttermilk pancake mix, and there were frozen blueberries, and real maple syrup in the fridge.  No bacon.  Dean found the coffee grinder and ground some of Lisa’s pricey beans, and he sure as hell knew how to work a coffee maker, no matter how many computerized settings it had.

 

As the pot finished dripping and Dean had a stack enough for Sam warming on a plate in the oven, Lisa padded in.  She was dressed, the soft material of her yoga clothes clinging to every curve, but Dean only felt a pang that she’d had to sneak into her own room to retrieve clothes for the day.

 

Dean forced himself to meet her eyes, shyness brimming to discomfort, almost overwhelming.  He so didn’t deserve....   “Morning,”  he said, trying hard.

 

“Morning, Dean,” Lisa said, and pushed around him to open the cabinet where the mugs were.  She brought out two enormous coffee mugs, and poured it black for both of them.

 

“Thanks for making breakfast, man,” she said, hands wrapped around the mug as she perched on a barstool next to the counter.

 

Dean nodded, not yet detecting any signs he’d screwed up.  “Pancakes,”  he said.  His voice, goddamn it, it still wasn’t working right, all tentative and weird. 

 

Lisa seemed not to notice.  “Serve ‘em up quick, before the bottomless pit of pancakes smells them.”  She pointed to the cabinet where the plates were, and the silverware drawer, and she ate pancakes while Dean continued to pour and flip.  Lisa had smoothly seasoned cast iron pans, familiar enough to Dean amidst all the comforts.

 

Dean waited for Lisa to give some tell that she was about to start asking questions, but it didn’t happen.  She ate her pancakes in tidy bites, savoring them, and drank her coffee slow.

 

Dean heard Ben before he saw him, pounding down the stairs; it had been three years, and Ben was taller, his face had lost most of its baby fat.  He looked so much like Dean had looked at that age that it was astonishing, but he had Lisa’s dark brown eyes.

 

“Hey, Dean!” Ben said as he walked in.

 

“Hey,” Dean said back, and served up a plate for Ben, while Ben poured himself some orange juice. Sam had always liked bananas cooked into his pancakes, but Dean stuck with blueberry for Ben.

 

“You okay?”  Ben asked.  “Mom said you needed somewhere to stay.”

 

Dean shot a look at Lisa, checking for pity or aggravation, but her first name may as well have been Mona for all she gave away. 

 

Dean suddenly remembered back to that long Labor Day weekend of 1998, playing strip poker with Lisa and losing like a freaking nudist on speed. His lips twitched with what might have been a smile, but it didn’t quite take hold.

 

“Your mom rocks,” Dean said, trying to make his voice work a little better.  “I hope it’s not any trouble.”

 

“No way, man!” Ben said, “Especially if you drive me to camp in that sweet car.” 

 

Dean looked to Lisa, who smiled, ducking her chin.

 

“If you want,” Dean said.   He had tuned and detailed the Impala relentlessly at Bobby’s; she was at the height of her perfection, impressive even to eleven year olds, Dean hoped.

 

Ben was signed up for a tae kwon do day camp.   Dean drove, soaking in the suburban aura of Cicero on a random late June Tuesday morning, and Ben rode shotgun, cheering happily at the AC/DC still in the tapedeck, talking about the other kids, what belts they were on, how the belt system worked, who his master had studied with, how Ben kept up with his martial arts even during baseball season, until they were suddenly there, and Ben piled out of the Impala, grabbed his lunch bag, and was gone inside the community center, with a request that Dean pick him up again at 3:30.

 

As though in a dream, Dean cruised slowly back to Lisa’s house.  Home.

 

Lisa was out on the deck in the back of the house, waiting for him.  She had brought the coffee with her, and some of those crunchy dry cookies that Sam liked to get at places where coffee cost too much and came with too much extra crap in it. 

 

The sun was shining, the air was full of the hum of everyday life, and Dean was about to be grilled as to how his world had fallen apart.  He sat down.  He had made it through thirty years on the rack, how hard could it be? 

 

“Where’s Sam?”  Lisa asked, casually enough.

 

Dean opened his mouth, but nothing came out.  

 

“Oh, no, Dean. I’m so sorry,”  Lisa said, eyes round, but she didn’t stare at him or pity him or keep trying to make him talk. She leaned up out of her chair toward him and  hugged him again, leaning awkwardly over him as he sat in one of her deck chairs and tried not to fall apart.

 

He couldn’t breathe, like heavier and heavier stones were pressing him down onto the rack.  He remembered that, so he knew what it was like.  He remembered the things they might be doing to Sam-- too much, he had to shut it down.  He forced his stomach muscles to move, to drag in air, to push back the gray edges crowding his vision.

 

Dean bent over, trying to get a hold of himself, and Lisa knelt down on the deck next to him, taking his hands in her own, strong grip.

 

“Sam’s in Hell,”  Dean finally whispered.  No voice came, but at least he could get it out once.  “He saved the world.  He took Lucifer down, into the Pit.”

 

Lisa’s brows drew together in confusion, but she gripped his hands tightly and didn’t question. 

 

Dean’s throat ached with the sobs he was choking back.  He whispered hoarsely, “We had to stop the god damned Apocalypse, okay?  Heaven versus Hell, with all of us in the middle. Now Sammy’s down there, paying for all the ways I screwed up....”

 

“Shit, Dean.  I’m so sorry,” Lisa said.  Tears were running down her sweet, compassionate face. “But if he saved the world, then won’t God or somebody save him?”

 

“God’s on vacation,”  Dean choked out.  He wanted to laugh at their tragedy, but he couldn’t, for crying. “Heaven hates our guts. We see Angels, we run for our lives.”

 

“You see Angels?”  Lisa queried, trying to wrap her mind around it.

 

“Yeah, and demons,”  Dean said.

 

“What, like, here on earth?”  Lisa asked, astonished.  Dean could tell she was struggling to make it seem like none of this was a big deal to her. It was nice of her to try.

 

“Yeah. I been to Heaven even, but they wipe your mind usually.” 

 

“And... Hell, too?”  Lisa asked.

 

“Yeah,”  Dean said.  “Sammy got killed, and I, uh, I sold my soul to bring him back. I never stopped to think he mighta been in Heaven.  I just, I missed him so bad...” 

 

Dean couldn’t hold back anymore, the sobs tried to wrench him apart. 

 

“Wow, Dean.  I mean, I knew you fought some scary shit, but Angels? Hell?  Isn’t there any body on your side?” Lisa held him and rubbed his back as he tried to get himself under control.

 

He wiped his face and tried to breathe, blinking at her solemnly. “It sucks to be on our side.  I don’t even know how many people I’ve buried this past year.”

 

Lisa didn’t reply to that, she just kept her hands on him, strong and steady, and they sat there a while.

 

“What would you have done differently, Dean?”  Lisa asked gently.

 

Dean couldn’t answer for a long time, pondering over all the ways the last year had sucked, and the year before, and the year before that; hell, most of his years on earth had sucked.

 

“If there had been some other way, you would have found it.”

 

Dean just nodded.  He knew all that. It still sucked.

 

Lisa sat back in her chair, now that Dean’s storm had subsided. She dunked one of those cookies in her coffee and munched it, drank a little more, and then looked up at the sky. It was one of those perfect days, the air crisp, the sky cloudless and blue. “You know, Dean, you made a big impression on me back when we first met.”

 

Dean scrunched up his nose, embarrassed, but she just kept looking up at the sky.

 

“I was always looking for someone a little wild, a little dangerous.  That sparkle in the eye, you know?  But you, you blew me away.  Charming, funny, gorgeous --- shit. When I figured out you were only nineteen, I laughed my ass off.  Remember?”

 

Dean did remember.  He’d found the lamest hunt of all time in Cicero, this supposed lake monster, that turned out to be this smelly little psychic toad, that he ended up rock salting pretty much by accident. And how he met Lisa over darts and tequila shots in that bar over on US 31, and she’d invited him back to her loft, and how it had come out that she was really four years older than him when they were talking about their favorite bands and different concerts they’d been to. Dean remembered it like it was yesterday, singing along to Zeppelin’s “You Shook Me” in Lisa’s loft with the ceiling fan stirring the sluggish early September air, reading the spines of her books – not the zen or the yoga ones, but the Vonnegut, and the Moorcock, and Tolkien-- and she read him Spanish poetry, and he didn’t understand it, but he liked the way she made it sound.

 

Dean had been with girls in a string of different towns by the time he was nineteen, but no one had ever clicked with him like Lisa. It was clear she saw straight through him, but she liked him anyway.  He pulled out every trick he knew to impress her, but she just smiled until all his smarmy moves dissolved into laughter.  Even after he let go of all the poses and the lines, she was still laughing, and he was laughing with her, and the weekend stretched out lazy and happy, mornings, afternoons, evenings, nights, breakfasts, dinners, coffees, beers – three days of a long weekend stretching into four, and then John called and Dean moved on, hightailing it south, and vowing he’d catch up with her again. And yeah, a year left to live, eventually he did.

 

“Some weekend, huh,”  Dean laughed-- hoarse, but the memories were pleasant.

 

“The best,”  Lisa smiled.

 

 “We kinda, hit it off, I guess,”  Dean said, looking down, fiddling with the cellophane around one of the cookies, trying half-heartedly to open it.

 

“You were just a kid, you know?  But you’d been just about everywhere, and you’d tell the craziest stories about you and your dad and Sam.   I couldn’t tell how much of a liar you were, but I really loved hearing you talk.”  Lisa smiled again.

 

“’m not really a talker,”  Dean murmured.  “He, he’s always trying to get me to, like, open up.”

 

“You talked about him non-stop, I don’t even think you realized it.  So proud,”  Lisa said. “If he loved you half as much as you loved him, he just wanted to help you carry the load.”  

 

Dean nodded, his voice failing him again.  Around them, all the sounds of suburbia were carrying on – lawn work, trucks passing, planes overhead, and the buzzing of cicadas loud in the trees.

 

“My dad passed away two years ago...” she said.

 

Dean lifted his head, eyes focusing on Lisa.

 

“... I mean, he and Mom moved to Florida several years back, but still, Ben lost his grandad, and I lost one of my best friends.  It’s never easy.  Time passes though, the memories get easier.”

 

Dean remembered only too well the terrible sorrow of losing his Dad, knowing Dad was in Hell because of Dean.  And Lisa was right, he had lived, and Dad eventually had escaped—without even breaking on the rack.  Maybe Sammy... but Dean couldn’t dwell on that.  He had promises to keep. He cleared his throat and emptied his coffee cup. 

 

“I promised Sam, that I’d try. Try to be happy.  So I came here.  I wanna try.”

 

Lisa smiled at Dean again, pouring more coffee for him. “One step at a time, yeah?”

 

Dean nodded.  He poked at his coffee with the cookie.  It tasted like lemon and almonds, and went instantly mushy.  It was kind of good. Dean thought Sam would’ve liked it.

 

“So, you thinking about a job?”  Lisa said.  “I don’t know, I mean, I caught on to your credit card thing, but do you ever, just, work?  Do you ever, like, earn a bounty?”

 

Dean had explained about Hunting back when he and Sam had killed the changelings.

 

“No bounties,” he said with a wry twist to his mouth.  “Every so often, you might fleece a dead body, but that’s not really....  it’s kind of gruesome, right?”  Dean checked Lisa’s face, which was only slightly wide-eyed, determinedly non-judgmental.

 

“I can work on cars, I’ve done a little construction, bus tables, that kind of thing,”  Dean said.  He’d be able to find something.  He had a good new ID that was practically legit.

 

“You gonna look for some place to live?” Lisa asked, clearing her throat. “I mean, I can’t sleep in the study forever!”  She laughed a little.

 

Dean was gobsmacked.  He had no idea what to say.  The plan was, “apple pie, backyard grill,  baseball games” – he hadn’t considered that Lisa might throw him a curve ball.  He’d pictured either outright rejection or falling into her bed.  But women, he well knew, were way more complicated than he was.

 

Dean remembered like it was yesterday, how sweet and relaxed it had been with Lisa, sleeping and talking and laughing and making love, so perfect on her futon on the floor of her loft.  His mind had skipped over the dozen years gone by.  He hung his head, struggling to come up with some kind of reply. 

 

Try as he might to answer, he felt his face turning redder and redder.

 

“I ... uh, I thought...  I’m so sorry,”  Dean finally managed, wretched. He stood up.

 

Lisa sprang up after him.  “No, I just mean... shit. I’m not trying to throw you out!”  She stared up at him, but finally, just pulled him down into a kiss.

 

Dean’s mind was whirling, but at least he could rely on his ability to return a kiss.  It was gentle, their lips moving softly together.   Lisa tasted of coffee, and she was warm and strong pressed against him.  She stroked the back of his neck a little and combed her fingers through the short hair on the back of his head – she remembered how much he loved that.  God. Twelve years.

 

Lisa pulled back, and Dean followed her lead.  She was a little breathless and a little sad. She was beautiful.

 

“I can’t rush this, Dean.  I can’t rush you.  You’re exhausted. You’re grieving.  Maybe you need a little time, after, you know, stopping the Apocalypse. You’re here because of a promise you made to your brother.”

 

“That’s not...” Dean finally managed to get a word out, and Lisa shushed him, a finger to his lips.

 

“No.  I just mean, I’ve got Ben to think about, not to mention my own best interests.  It’s not, you know, I’m not a totally different person from when I would just sleep with whoever I wanted --- but I’ve got a lot more at stake now.”  Lisa laughed.  “Ben actually asked if I was gonna be in love with you.”  


Dean didn’t think his face could get any redder, but he felt himself flush with heat yet again.

 

“I told him, maybe I would be,”  Lisa said carefully. 

 

Dean’s heart beat painfully at her words.  He’d had one year to live, and he’d sought her out. He had pawned it off to Sammy as a sexploit, but it wasn’t nothing.  And once he knew about Ben, even Alastair couldn’t tear it out  -- that most secret of all secret hopes, nestled soft in the Mom-scented memory of her loveliest silk scarf, hidden as deep as the lockbox welded in place behind the false back of the Impala’s trunk – the secret hope that maybe Lisa could love him, that maybe Ben was his kid, that maybe, against all odds, he could have a real, honest to god home, a wife and a son who loved him, despite everything.

 

“I –”   Dean heard the painful choke in his throat, the soft high tone that betrayed him – “I – I want that. Whatever you want.”

 

Lisa hadn’t let go of him.  She could feel the heat flooding through him, the sweat springing out all over him from this ordeal of hope. She held on.

 

“No guarantees. We go slow, we see how it goes.” 

 

“Okay,”  Dean nodded. 

 

“That’s all I meant by you finding a place to stay. I need a real bed to sleep in, and so do you—and it’s too soon for us to fall into bed together. Much as I know how awesome it would be,”  she added, softly.

 

“Okay,” Dean agreed. His heart thumped like a dog’s tail at her words, but his body was quieter, and he knew how right she was about him needing a little time.

 

She pulled him close and kissed him again, and Dean followed her lead.  She kissed like an Angel – like Anna, when Anna had seen into his heart and forgiven him for all he’d done in Hell, offering him her body as comfort and absolution.  Anna was dead now, but somehow, after so many deaths, Lisa was still alive, and she wanted to give him a chance.  And somehow, Dean still hadn’t screwed it up yet.

 

Sam had made him promise, and even though Dean felt like he was barely functional, maybe that promise was enough to keep him alive.  Maybe, if Lisa helped him, he might make it.

 

 


End file.
